How Do You Use a Logo?

Now that you have a logo selected, how to do you use it? The purpose of the logo is to help you be consisent in your communications across various media. To that end, you want to start with broad uses first, then drill down to lesser-seen areas:

Website, signage, bulletin, letterhead. Implement the consistent use of your logo on your website, your church sign, your Sunday bulletin and your church letterhead (and business cards and envelopes). Start with these four elements and work out from there--this will give the logo the most exposure, and show your audience the most consisent image for your church from the moment you begin using your new logo.

Create a "style guide". As you expand the use of your logo, create a simple guide that indicates how it is to be used. It should include the "official" colors, typefaces (fonts) and how the name of the church should be characterized. This does not have to be complicated--a few pages at most. Insist that all church leadership confirm to these simple rules for consistency. The idea is that the logo appears the same everywhere it is used, and that consistency over time creates a professional image for your organization.

Background, not foreground. The logo is often not the most important element on the page, website, video or other media element. Once chosen, let your logo appear quietly, subtly and in proper perspective. I'm not big on massive logo signs, animations or other "media shouts" using the church logo. Let it be consistently seen, but not overly emphasized. It is a canvas near which other content, teaching and ministry information resides. It represents your organization, but more importantly, the organization itself needs to point first to Christ versus its own media package.

Remember, you're not branding. I speak to the issue of branding in significant detail elsewhere on this site. The short version: a church does not have the resources nor in most cases the need to pursue a brand identity with their logo and other media elements. We are promoting the church, not marketing it. The question, then, to ask is not whether the logo is enhancing our church's "brand," but rather, is the logo helping us to appear competent and professional, so that over time we may earn the right to engage an audience outside our own walls?

  

Logo Savvy: Top Brand Design Firms Share their Naming and Identity Strategies

Logo Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Logo Design (That Works Series)

The Big Book of Logos

> Click for more books and periodicals on designing.

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